Parents of First, Second and Third Graders

My son always wanted to read reference books with vocabulary way ahead of his reading level. Our librarian used the five finger approach, if you can count five words you don't know on the first page or pages you open, it's a little too soon to try to read the book on your own. But, she would let kids take them out and ask a parent to read with them. You want to keep them interested in looking at, listening to and looking for books. It's a short, but challenging, stage you're in, so whatever you do, try not to discourage her or lessen the power of books to provide her with lots of ballet stories and information!

Funny - I mentioned this to my daughter last night ("Have you ever heard of the five finger approach?") and she looked at me like I'd just crawled out from under a rock. "Dad, we learned that in second grade!"

A Very Young Dancer by Jill Krementz

http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0394408853/ref=olp_product_details?ie=UTF8

Thanks for your help! My daughter and I love the book, A Very Young Dancer. There's also one for riders that I got for my niece and it was a big hit.

Don't ask me what it is about making corn bread that brought this to mind, but one of our favorites is Amy the Dancing Bear by Carly Simon.
http://search.barnesandnoble.com/Amy-the-Dancing-Bear/Carly-Simon/e/9780385
I need to re-read it this week-end!

Hm. . . did your daughter take the AR reading test (STAR or something?) My first grader did and tested at the 2.7 level at the beginning of the year. It gave a range of proximal growth of 2.3-3.3 and the teacher has been letting her pick books out of her 2.3-2.5 collection (She has a large collection of books for the kids to take home organized by level). I also leave 2.4-3.3 books out on her bedside table and sometimes she'll pick one up and read. She has no problem reading them--but probably learns a few new words per book. If your daughter's taken this test, you can look up books by level, author, or title using the advanced search option at http://www.arbookfind.com. I think most schools have the AR stuff--but some teacher's probably don't use it, so you might want to approach the teacher about having her take the test. (The test is automatically done on the computer--so it doesn't require any grading on the teacher's part--your daughter may have to go to the library to take it.) If you search the AR website, you will get literally thousands of books right on your child's level. . . I hope this helps. . .

Darn! Note to SchoolPulse people: Given that I really should proof read before I post, it would be great if I could go back and edit for grammatical errors after I post. Just a thought. . . .